Too often, communities don’t get the help they need. Small towns across the country try to keep their workers in jobs, raise healthy kids, and make today’s lot better than yesterday’s.

But West Virginia’s more than 1,000 towns don’t stand alone. They have the Community Design Team, an outreach of West Virginia University. When their own resources are scarce and they need people who believe in them and fresh ideas, they call this group of professors and students who use their skills to solve real problems. With their help, these residents can make their towns better than before.

Montgomery

Montgomery, one of the more recent places the CDT visited, is a river town not far from West Virginia’s capital of Charleston. In the fall of 2010, professors and students looked around the town. WVU sent its best in public administration, landscape architecture, engineering, entrepreneurship and recreation, parks and tourism.

They catalogued the town’s strengths and challenges and spent time talking to community leaders and activists. They returned to Morgantown to assemble suggestions to promote economic development, tourism and beautification in Montgomery.

They also left a mural that combines the icons of the town’s heritage with plans for the future.

Ronceverte

After the Community Design Team compiles plans for towns, community leaders and residents decide what they’d like to change. In Ronceverte, W.Va.—a town outside of Lewisburg whose name is French for Greenbrier—community activists decided to do nearly everything in the plan.

Nearly 10 years after the CDT visit, there is a different feel in Ronceverte. Historic buildings that had sat empty are now reviving and serve as homes to new businesses. The kids in town have a public skate park. Millions of dollars in grants have come in through the town’s new Main Street program and Ronceverte Development Corporation.